East of Edgeware: The Lost John Watson Chronicles
by Noah Miller
Summary: A beautiful and tragic drama about a love that we know can never be. A look at the incredible and arduous romance between John Watson, a poor beggar orphan who finds love with his old medical classmate, Sherlock Holmes.
1. Chapter 1

London was decimated by a silent killer. No one spoke its name on their bloated tongues, but everyone knew what it was. But where it was that was a different story.

My name is John Watson and as I sat in the streets of Londontown, I was consumed by the fact that everyone around me was dying. The bodies piled up. But I didn't know any of their names. Maybe they had families. And somehow I was jealous of these dead, rotting corpses. How you may ask? Well, I never knew my family. It's better to live a short life full of love and beauty than a long life alone and dead inside.

"Hello," I called out to a lady alone walking slowly down the muddied ground. She didn't respond. People walk by me everyday, but no one really sees me for who I am.

As I grow old, I'm 27 I want to leave Londontown. Although I've called this dolly wobbles city my home my entire life, I want a different life for myself. I was in the army for a short time. Senseless killing is all it taught me and my hand trembles as I think of the darker-skinned rebels I killed. I don't feel anything anymore.

I slowly rise up off the shit-covered ground and I'm off to Westminster Abbey. Going to the beacon of hope and false religion is a part of my daily ritual. I've done it for my entire life and tonight is no different. I head on over London Bridge and soon I'm on Edgware Road. There's not too many people around this late at night and I blend in with the marketplace's customers. I envision the beautiful woman with their skirts below their knees and how they look in their rattled and cheap corsets. I wish I could live in their homes and fuck them in their beds.

"Shut up," I tell myself. "You don't matter. You're nobody."

"Shut up, get down and say nothing." Wait I didn't say that part. A man tackles me to the hard ground. I do as he says and obey his harsh orders. Soon he chloroforms me and I feel like a University student all over again. Thinking about the man's tone of voice, he sounds like a man I once knew at school but we both went our separate ways. Him off to being a mathematics professor and I, a homeless war veteran with mental health issues. I can't say who is worse off. I guess perhaps me, when I think about it for the two minutes I'm being held captive in a dark alleyway.

The man keeps me on the ground since he easily overpowers me.

"Are you Sherlock? Your voice just sounds surprisingly familiar to me ears."

"Hush." And he chloroforms me again.

When I awake my reddened eyeballs, I assumed my tall captor would be in the bedroom. I was seemingly frantic and called out his name. Or what seemingly was his name.

"SHERLOCK!"

I heard loud as an elephant's footsteps approach the threshold to my room. I drew the covers up to my face and shuddered in my smelly clothing.

The white door creaked open slowly and the man I knew from college wandered into the room with his slightly-heeled shoes.

"Please be quiet Watson, we wouldn't want to wake the prostitutes," Sherlock said.

"Where am I good sir?"

"My home of course. Where else would you be?"

I didn't understand the question the man asked me, considering I was shaking. I hadn't been a home and a bedroom this well-furnished in my life. As soon as I left college, I joined the army. And the twee linens and the silk canopy overhead the beautiful baby blue sheets on the bed could only be afforded by the richest of the men in the country. I never knew Sherlock Holmes was well off. I never spoke too long to any one man at my college because I knew no practice would ever take me on because I hadn't been afforded the privileges and posh lifestyle of my classmates. While they were getting fucked by their rent boys and investing opium and getting imbibed by the finest of cognacs, I was living in the bathrooms.

"John, hello?" Holmes startled me as he spoke his words.

"Yes."

"I want you to be my boyfriend."

"What?"

"And my swordsman and doctor."

I honestly was completely flabbergasted by what he spoke to me. As I digested the full and complete meaning of the request, I wasn't sure what to say back to the man I hadn't seen in over two full rotations of the sun.

"Ummm I don't think you are in your right mind sir."

"This is most definitely not the opium speaking Watson. I have given what I have asked of you so much thought, you cannot even begin to imagine how much I truly mean what I say to you."

"Okay."

He lunged at the beautifully-adorned bed set and stuck his sticky fingers in my mouth. I instantaneously gagged at his digits' placement in my throat and vomited the remaining food I ate two weeks ago.

"Watson I don't expect you to be so easily overcome."

I passed out and didn't awake until the next morning where I was awoken by a nickel-silver tray with a full english breakfast sitting lightly on top of the precious metal.

"eat."

"what?"

"just eat what I gave you, then we'll start." "start what?"

"what you came here to do obviously doctor."

"oh. so raper training?"

"RAPIER," he said rolling the delicate r on the word.

"right," he said to me. Or I said. A/N: FIX THIS DIALOGUE.

So I finished my single egg that I had and we got to work.

So I followed him into the terrace and he threw a stick at me. I didn't catch it. I slowly bent up to pick it up and watched his gaze follow me all the way to ground. I thought wooden swords were for idiots. He daggered his stick at me and I fell to the ground.

"Ow."

"Get up."

We continued on this marvelously grand lesson for the rest of the day without even taking a break for a nice chilled glass of water. The next day he said to think of the sword fighting as a dance.

"But I don't even dance."

"You'll learn, they all learn."

I didn't completely know what he meant by that so I didn't dare think about the sad morsel of a thought in my brain ever again.

The workouts were excruciating. We never took breaks and I couldn't exactly tell you why I wouldn't leave the giant mansion with a nice bed and a full kitchen with eggs and oregano. I hadn't eaten anything with the most aromatic yet slightly bitter perennial herb. I can smell it thinking about it now. Can you reader? I can and it's a glorious feeling. I suck it in to my nostrils. The sound is audible and Holmes looks at me.

"Dearest Watson, are you high?"

"No. Just thinking about some stuff."

"well if you are chap, you must share some of you puff."

"Puff."

"Puff."

"Isn't that like being…gay?"

No it's like being high on cocaine. And gay."

"Oh."

Wow I didn't know Holmes was such a junkie, but I guess when you're rich, there's a lot of minutes and seconds on your hands. I wish I had that kind of time.

"Refocus your attention Watson."

It had been 1 long year of working out and although I had become a completely competent doctor once again, I wasn't that much of a swordsman. Maybe Holmes knew this but didn't have a care that I was bad. Maybe he knew I was bad all along. I didn't like to burden myself with the thoughts like that, but they did creep in sometimes. And that night after our practice, my life changed forever.

As we set our actual rapiers down in the shed out by the horse's two-story colonial style home, I felt something peculiar. Like something was going to happen that had never happened before.

We were cleaning up and making sure the horses were prepared for the endless rain that is so common in the land of Britannia, you all know about it. Innit? I was completely knackered but as I placed the rapier into a holding tube hung on the wall, Holmes and my hand lightly touched each other's. We looked at each other and knew what was about to happen.

Holmes lightly slid his arm up my newly-enlarged bicep and held my cheek in his large hands. He tore off my red linen tunic and unfastened my brown calf leather belt that he had given to me. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that he would lead me. He handed me a cloudy vile and told me to drink. I drank. When he said suck. I sucked. We kept each other up that night with strokes of our bodies and nibbles on our butts. At dawn we knew we had to go back to our normal lives. This would never pass in our time, it just wasn't accepted. How backwards society is.

I wanted to be able to yell from the rooftops and write poetry sonnets about my love but I kept as quiet as a mouse. I couldn't ruin his status in society. It's one thing to make love to men on the side, it's another to take a man with you on a dinner date and to the opera.

Falling in love formed something that was whole in my body. I felt it like a horse-drawn carriage CRASHING into me on a cold winter's night with the light but porous frozen water droplets gently covering my eyes.

The next night as we lay in bed together, we just sat next to each other. We were so familiar with each other, fucking hard wasn't even in our daily vernacular. That was too common, we were unique.

"Marry me you fool!"

The words took me aback, I spit out the splendid cup of tea my servant made me.

"yes. yes. yes. Holy cow, yes."

Right then and there I wanted him to come on me and write his name in his own ejaculate on my own buttcrack. Then I would slowly lick it off my anus and he would be inside me arse, mentally and emotionally. Which is better than physical stuff. Wankers.

We slept and fucked and then repeated that for a while. I thanked him in the language he was forcing me to learn for 3 hours a day. Deutsch. Danke schön Englische Mann. We only speak non-conversational Deutsch to each other because we play student and teacher. It's all very naughty readers. As the day to be wed vastly approaches, my nerves become increasingly larger. My dress robes are picked out for me by the fashion designer I didn't know was employed and living in the horse's quarters. He recommends I wear a black tuxedo with a blue bow tie even though I think in my own mind that definitely clashes I continue to agree with him on everything that comes out of his mouth. But something that is more on my mind.

I don't know what to write to my husband-to-be. Maybe a sonnet. Yes, of course a sonnet. This romance has wrapped me up in all of its glory and I am pregnant with its joy. I feel like I am about to birth it out of my bosom but something stops me every time. But right now, nothing can stop me.


	2. Chapter 2

PART TWO

I present to you my dearest readers _Sonnet 116 (Revisited)_.

 _Sonnet 116 Revisited_

 _I deconstruct his image_

 _Beauty as Picasso_

 _Will he love my boxes and ?questions?_

 _I know he will and his glory will hang on my wall_

 _I have gone mad as the fiery Fairy Queen wanted me to be_

 _A stranger in a strange land_

 _What I call myself_

 _The atoms churn in my gutturals and escape through my pores_

 _Starved by my own mind_

 _Leap, Stab and Shank_

 _His body engrained in mine_

 _I know nothing else but his ideas_

 _As thou they are mine own_

 _I take his hand_

 _He takes mine_

 _That's all_

I take my vows written on a piece of perfect parchment and head to the local Church I detest so much in my guts. As an atheist, any theism whether it's Oriental or from London. It makes me sick. But then I pause and knowingly look out the window. I drop to my knees. The Church is set afire. Love. My Love. What will I do?

I…I…I…wanted this to be my, not my happily ever after but my truest version of my unfortunate reality. But I guess that was just all too much to ask the god i didn't believe in for. They say to never end sentences with prepositions but I just don't care anymore for real this about.

So I'll create my own reality. Come with me if you dare readers.

come.

FADE IN

EXT. HOUSE - INTERIOR

The silent day slowly peers through the broken window in the albeit expensive Victorian estate of SHERLOCK HOLMES (crisp, 30s).

The day is cloudless and one of those days that really sticks in your mind and comes back and visits you when you're laying in bed alone and wishing that someone else was laying next to you. Then you sigh, turn over each vertebrae one by one and stretch your neck to the furthermost corner of your full BED. AND dab your TEARS away with a terrycloth handkerchief. A servant comes to take away the HANDKERCHIEF and you reflect on the most unusual circumstances that have brought you to this mansion, this life, this MAN.

The light slowly yet surely pours into the room. I lie in bed with my husband SHERLOCK HOLMES and we are happy together. WATSON smiles and cocks his head toward his Husband.

WATSON

Oh, Sherlock.

What are we to do this average day in our actual lives?

Sherlock stares at WATSON with a blank expression, almost like he is not for real in the Victorian estate. Almost as if he is a dead ghost.

SHERLOCK, HUSBAND

I don't know babe.

WATSON

I want you to be near you.

SHERLOCK

What if I told you you can't be near me? Not anymore.

WATSON

I want to be near you.

SHERLOCK puts one foot on the floor with such gusto it shakes the oak wooden floor that was installed in the house 100s of years ago but hasn't been updated unlike the rest of the interior design of the home.

SHERLOCK

No.

WATSON

Where are you going? It's late and nothing is even near us. We're not in good London anymore. Nowhere near the city boys.

SHERLOCK

It never was about that and you know that.

WATSON

I don't want this guilt.

SHERLOCK dramatically with purpose throws his other legs over the bed and places his back to Watson's face and ignores his request.

SHERLOCK

Do you think I care about your guilt?

WATSON

Yes.

SHERLOCK

I'm dead.

WATSON

I as well.

But the story always continues. Maybe with someone else. No one's dead forever. I know I was made, was created was birthed from a dark cavity minge for something. I know I'm important. Not everyone is here for a reason. I must be or why would I be here at all? Everyone has a purpose and this is mine. To be someone's partner.

I sleep for what might as well have been a reptile's lifetime because I feel as though I have missed out on everything.

"Mr. Watson are you awake?"

My servants awaken me but I am not having any of it.

I continue to sleep. I awaken again to a large slam of my bedroom door. A doctor has come. Little does he know I am also a skilled physician with more experience and less patience he could ever imagine in his plebe brain.

:Mr….

:Watson.:

:Yes, I did know that. If you would've let me finish my sentence, I would have said.:

"What are you doing here. who are you?"

"I'm your worst nightmare," the man smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

"What?"

"I am only kidding Mr. Watson, I am the Holmes family physician. I am sorry for your loss."

"Oh…yes of course…"

"…I was called to make sure you are okay and in condition to help us with the arrangements."

"Yes. How long have I been asleep do you think in your best professional opinion?"

"About 3 weeks."

"What?"

"No only about 3 days."

"Oh."

"They say heartbreak can be the best sedative."

"Yeah, you're right."

"I'm giving you just some light dosages of pain medication and an opiate to relieve stress," the doctor said slowly and in rhythm with the Bach playing in the background.

"Wait what?" I asked.

"Well the pain medication is for the heartbreak and the opiate is for the fun."

Although this was a weird request from a complete stranger, I agreed and took the pills he slowly grabbed from the bottom of an unmarked glass vial. I didn't feel anything at first but then all at once I felt it. The drugs took hold. I knew with my medical background that I shouldn't have taken the opiate. Why would you take that? It made no sense whatsoever but I trusted the doctor that was in front of me. He was the only person who seemed to care about me after the…accident.

I can scarcely think of the accident now readers. But as soon as the harsh medicine took a hold of my bloodstream I felt more alive than ever. More alive than my fiancee who had just sadly perished. I wanted to sin with this doctor, than man of medicine. We must have so much in common I thought. I wanted to be with him. I looked at myself in a mirror and thought it was a wall. This chemical reaction was quite dubious.

I looked at the man's face and didn't see a face. It was just a black hole into another world. I jumped into the space that should have been a mouth, nose and eyes and entered a different reality than my own. I was married to the doctor. I didn't even know his name. Wow. But I felt so close to him. I knew I loved him and that this was the man for me.

As I looked at the new world that I so desperately wanted, I also wasn't completely sure of it because I had just lost the person that I thought was my one and only soulmate in the world. But I wanted to be married again. A ring popped into my pocket and I saw the back of the doctor's head. I tapped him on the shoulder and my old love Holmes turned back at me and was crying. He said nothing but just cried and feel to his knees. I ran the other way but I couldn't move. I just ran in place and gasped. The range disappeared and soon I was in my bed again. But everything was a dark black.

I saw nothing but the shine of the fine fabrics and soon was covered in pills, a water washed over my head. I couldn't breathe. I gasped out. I screamed out. No one answered. So then I didn't scream out anymore. I swerved in the bubbles that formed around my mouth. I couldn't talk, my voice was gone. There is nothing worse than that feeling.

"Are you cheating on me?"

Even though Holmes was crucified into the earth, did he ever love me? Or was I just a distraction from his actual life? No one saw me and then he did see me. He made me seen in society and I will always love him for that.

The water filled my lungs and my eyes went black. The world was in complete silence. I felt like I would join my love soon.

"John are you okay?"

The doctor was over me and I realized I wasn't dead. Even though it is a sin, I almost wanted to be dead. I wanted to join my true love.

"John come with me."

"I can't do this anymore."

"Do what?"

"Any of it."

"Let's get some breakfast."

The simple request hit me like well-landed punch. I supposed he was right. His smile convinced me and I followed him to the kitchen of the estate.

He cooked me breakfast even though there are servants that would have done that for him. It made a very long lasting impression on me. In my entire life, I can't think of when a gentleman made me a meal and pulled out my chair.

"Thank you, sir. What is your name though?"

"Just call me Dr."

"Oh."

"Okay…doctor."

He spooned each morsel of the wet beans into my dry and wanting mouth. Then came the ripened tomato. The seeds lightly grazed my back molars and I sat up in excitement. The juice sprayed the back of my throat. I swallowed the juice and opened my mouth for more. Splendid!

Then as readers as you know came the fried eggs. They were cooked delightfully and the light coating of butter on the egg went a long way to satisfy me. We didn't have any bacon in stock so there was only sausage left to consume this dark morning. Doctor took the meat and aggressively cut the meat and almost elbowed me in the head. I luckily ducked in time. God bless. He finished cutting all the sausage and I was tired after eating all of the scrumptious offerings I was given so politely by my doctor.

"That was a delightful Full Monty doctor."

"Thank you John."

"I would love to know your real name if you could tell me if at all possible," I pleaded with the man.

"I mean I suppose since I cooked you a _full_ English Breakfast I can tell you…"

.."

….."

"…Well what is it?"

"James…Moriarty."

"Oh that's a pretty banger mash name."

"Yeah most people think it is."

"Do you meet a lot of people with your job as a doctor?"

I said this and I recoiled in my dry and flaky skin. Luckily the doctor rubbed a vat of vasoline on to my body while I was asleep. I didn't remember him doing this but when I woke up my entire body including my perineal area. It felt odd and a tad sticky, but the thought it was truly counts in a relationship. Any relationship. IT could be a friendship or even a sibling, but everything is a two-way street. Two. Way. Street. I felt like I was torn in two in this town by two streets.

"Not much, I'm more of a consulting doctor."

"Oh."

"Will you marry me?"

As I drank my Orient-imported Darjeeling tea. I looked at the fragments of tea leaves and I thought of the slaves that fingers bled that grazed planting the tea seeds and picking when their master's crops blossomed. But these flowers were only beautiful for the people living inside. Inside the nice homes with running water and powdered faces. The rolling hills of green. Only green for the masters. Only profits for the masters. I thought will I become a slave to this man? Will he be my Master? Maybe I yearn for that feeling to have someone love me so much they have full control in the relationship. For once I'll let someone else lead me blindly and wholly in love.

"I cannot believe you're asking me this."

I wanted to be his indentured servant and wanted to know his true feelings. Maybe I would ask him to write them down. So I could fully understand his love. I wanted to know him like I knew no one before him.

"Well believe it."

"Yes..yes…I mean yes."

"Perfect the ceremony will be tomorrow."

"Oh okay. Doesn't that seem a little fast for you?"

I could sense his longing to be married to me and I empathized with his wish.

"Wait. Never mind that thought, James. I would love to marry you tomorrow."

We prepared for bed while the servants prepared for tomorrow's festivities. I wholly trusted my doctor, James Moriarty. I lie in bed with my husband-to-be. I heard a faint noise in the dark moor in the distance.

"John, where are you?"

I woke up from my almost slumber and sat up in my Egyptian-cotton linens.

"John, come home!" a man's voice shouted loudly yet far away.

I ran out of my bedroom. I recognized that voice, I would have recognized that voice anywhere and anytime in space or history.

It was Sherlock Holmes. Back from the dead?

I didn't even put my silk slippers on my tender feet before rushing out of the house and into the yard. I still heard the calling and finally located the sound. It was in our pond that led to the grand entrance of my estate.

I saw Sherlock's face. He was pale and not well fed, but he seemed as alive as ever. As I saw his structured cheekbones turn to me, I was hit with a feeling. I felt like I was resurrected by his own personal Christ that punched its way into my mouth.

"John, John…where am I?"

"Sherlock, Sherlock! I can't believe you're alive."

"Help me John."

"Let's get you inside, honey."

I dragged him inside the home that we were once meant to share together and he collapsed. I was so afraid I would lose him again but I knew he would pull through. If only for me.

"John, John what's going on?" I almost forgot about the doctor that was now sharing my bed.

"Ummm Sherlock. He's alive! Isn't that incredible yet also shocking news?"

"Why, yes. Yes it is," he replied, looking as if something else was on his mind. "Let's get him upstairs and I'll look after him."

The maids and servants took Sherlock upstairs, and I followed since it was technically their jobs. He seemed tired and luckily my dear doctor was there to give him the first aid he so desperately needed.

"I'm going to pump your heart with a dose of adrenaline. Your pulse seems to be almost undetectable."

Sherlock was shaking his head no, but what I did I know about medicine. I hadn't practiced in years. The diagnosis was sound.

He ripped off Sherlock's ratty tweed jacket and shoved the sharp metal needle into his sternum. Sherlock yelled out in immense pain and then all was quiet on this front. His hand went limp. The hand that was entwined into my own. His pulse disappeared like the doctor said it would. My love was dead. I couldn't prepare myself for this happening twice in the past two days, but i had. And I needed to figure out how I was going to deal with it. I cried into my doctor's arms. He didn't support me.

"Hold me, James."

I just wanted his love sans his body. No even his body. Especially his body. I wanted so much at once. I wanted both man that were in front me, but I didn't know what to do. James didn't seem to care much at all that Sherlock had died. That he dealt him his last blow.

"Wait what did you do to him?" I shouted dramatically into his face.

"Nothing you wouldn't have done. Right doctor?"

"No, no. We should've waited longer. We should have done something different for him," I realized.

"I did what I had to do. Please don't judge me, baby."

"I can't believe this. I need time to think about this."

"Let me…"

"No I'll be back soon."

I got up and left the already rotting corpse that laid in the bed that I spent so many nights with my romantic lovers.

I couldn't think of what to do, where to go, who to telegraph. So I quickly decided to do none of it. I grabbed what the liquor cabinet contained and went to the room at the top floor of the house. I decided to there for the remainder of my life. I decided that would not be too much longer.

I drank. The cork popped. I drank. I didn't even need a goblet for my liquid purification.

I sat in the same spot for days. Finally my soon-to-be-husband joined me. He asked me to sign a piece of paper I dare not read. And could not read because of the intoxication of my blood.

"Thank you."

"No thank you."

I wasn't sure what was to come from what I had just signed, but I didn't even care a shred of that clean parchment because my true love was taken away from me. I realized that you only truly love one person in life and Sherlock was that person for me. And if he couldn't be here, than I wouldn't be either.

I drank every bottle that was in the house. The servants never even tried to come upstairs and feed me which made me feel even more worthless. They didn't even respect their lord. But who cared anymore, I wasn't long for this world. Each day, I grew weaker and weaker. Eventually I was used to the balmy odor that came from my body. I barely slept and when I did I was awoken to the sound of myself vomiting and it coating the back of my throat. I could feel my body betraying me. Eventually the end came to me. I died how I thought I would. Alone. But Sherlock had let me seen at least a different life. A better life. My life.


End file.
